The Seven Dials Mystery (Superintendent Battle 2)

Jimmy listened with sympathetic attention.

“Hard luck,” he vouchsafed. “If it’s going to take some time, I’ll run you back in my car after lunch.”

A gong sounded at that moment and they all went in. Bundle observed Jimmy covertly. She thought she had noticed an unusual note of exultance in his voice. She had the feeling that things had gone well.

After lunch they took a polite leave of Lady Coote, and Jimmy volunteered to run them down to the garage in his car. As soon as they had started the same words burst simultaneously from both girls’ lips:

“Well?”

Jimmy chose to be provoking.

“Well?”

“Oh, pretty hearty, thanks. Slight indigestion owing to overindulgence in dry biscuits.”

“But what has happened?”

“I tell you. Devotion to the cause made me eat too many dry biscuits. But did our hero flinch? No, he did not.”

“Oh, Jimmy,” said Loraine reproachfully, and he softened.

“What do you really want to know?”

“Oh, everything. Didn’t we do it well? I mean, the way we kept Pongo and Terence O’Rourke in play.”

“I congratulate you on the handling of Pongo. O’Rourke was probably a sitter—but Pongo is made of other stuff. There’s only one word for that lad—it was in the Sunday Newsbag crossword last week. Word of ten letters meaning everywhere at once. Ubiquitous. That described Pongo down to the ground. You can’t go anywhere without running into him—and the worst of it is you never hear him coming.”

“You think he’s dangerous?”

“Dangerous? Of course he’s not dangerous. Fancy Pongo being dangerous. He’s an ass. But, as I said just now, he’s an ubiquitous ass. He doesn’t even seem to need sleep like ordinary mortals. In fact, to put it bluntly, the fellow’s a damned nuisance.”

And, in a somewhat aggrieved manner, Jimmy described the events of the previous evening.

Bundle was not very sympathetic.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing anyway, mooching around here.”

“No 7,” said Jimmy crisply. “That’s what I’m after. No 7.”

“And you think you’ll find him in this house?”

“I thought I might find a clue.”

“And you didn’t?”

“Not last night—no.”

“But this morning,” said Loraine, breaking in suddenly. “Jimmy, you did find something this morning. I can see it by your face.”

“Well, I don’t know if it is anything. But during the course of my stroll—”

“Which stroll didn’t take you far from the house, I imagine.”

“Strangely enough, it didn’t. Round trip of the interior, we might call it. Well, as I say, I don’t know whether there’s anything in it or not. But I found this.”

With the celerity of a conjurer he produced a small bottle and tossed it over to the girls. It was half full of a white powder.

“What do you think it is?” asked Bundle.

“A white crystalline powder, that’s what it is,” said Jimmy. “And to any reader of detective fiction those words are both familiar and suggestive. Of course, if it turns out to be a new kind of patent tooth powder, I shall be chagrined and annoyed.”

“Where did you find it?” asked Bundle sharply.

“Ah!” said Jimmy, “that’s my secret.”

And from that point he would not budge in spite of cajolery and insult.

“Here we are at the garage,” he said. “Let’s hope the high-mettled Hispano has not been subjected to any indignities.”

The gentleman at the garage presented a bill for five shillings and made a few vague remarks about loose nuts. Bundle paid him with a sweet smile.

“It’s nice to know we all get money for nothing sometimes,” she murmured to Jimmy.

The three stood together in the road, silent for the moment as they each pondered the situation.

“I know,” said Bundle suddenly.

“Know what?”

“Something I meant to ask you—and nearly forgot. Do you remember that glove Superintendent Battle found—the half-burnt one?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you say that he tried it on your hand?”

“Yes—it was a shade big. That fits in with the idea of its being a big, hefty man who wore it.”

“That’s not at all what I’m bothering about. Never mind the size of it. George and Sir Oswald were both there too, weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“He could have given it to either of them to fit on?”

“Yes, of course—”

“But he didn’t. He chose you. Jimmy, don’t you see what that means?”

Mr. Thesiger stared at her.

“I’m sorry, Bundle. Possibly the jolly old brain isn’t functioning as well as usual, but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you see, Loraine?”

Loraine looked at her curiously, but shook her head.

“Does it mean anything in particular?”

“Of course it does. Don’t you see—Jimmy had his right hand in a sling.”

“By Jove, Bundle,” said Jimmy slowly. “It was rather odd now I come to think of it; it’s being a left-hand glove, I mean. Battle never said anything.”

“He wasn’t going to draw attention to it. By trying it on you it might pass without notice being drawn to it, and he talked about the size just to put everybody off. But surely it must mean that the man who shot at you held the pistol in his left hand.”

“So we’ve got to look for a left-handed man,” said Loraine thoughtfully.

“Yes, and I’ll tell you another thing. That was what Battle was doing looking through the golf clubs.

He was looking for a left-handed man’s.”

“By Jove,” said Jimmy suddenly.

“What is it?”

“Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything in it, but it’s rather curious.”

He retailed the conversation at tea the day before.

“So Sir Oswald Coote is ambidexterous?” said Bundle.

“Yes. And I remember now on that night at Chimneys—you know, the night Gerry Wade died—I was watching the bridge and thinking idly how awkwardly someone was dealing—and then realizing that it was because they were dealing with the left hand. Of course, it must have been Sir Oswald.”

They all three looked at each other. Loraine shook her head.

“A man like Sir Oswald Coote! It’s impossible. What could he have to gain by it?”

“It seems absurd,” said Jimmy. “And yet—”

“No 7 has his own ways of working,” quoted Bundle softly. “Supposing this is the way Sir Oswald has really made his fortune?”

“But why stage all that comedy at the Abbey when he’d had the formula at his own works?”

“There might be ways of explaining that,” said Loraine. “The same line of argument you used about Mr. O’Rourke. Suspicion had to be diverted from him and placed in another quarter.”

Bundle nodded eagerly.

“It all fits in. Suspicion is to fall on Bauer and the Countess. Who on earth would ever dream of suspecting Sir Oswald Coote?”

“I wonder if Battle does,” said Jimmy slowly.

Some chord of memory vibrated in Bundle’s mind. Superintendent Battle plucking an ivy leaf off the millionaire’s coat.

Had Battle suspected all the time?

Twenty-nine

SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF GEORGE LOMAX

“Mr. Lomax is here, my lord.”

Lord Caterham started violently, for, absorbed in the intricacies of what not to do with the left wrist, he had not heard the butler approach over the soft turf. He looked at Tredwell more in sorrow than in anger.

“I told you at breakfast, Tredwell, that I should be particularly engaged this morning.”

“Yes, my lord, but—”

“Go and tell Mr. Lomax that you have made a mistake, that I am out in the village, that I am laid up with the gout, or, if all else fails, that I am dead.”